Finding A Legacy
by UndressTheseBeautifulLies
Summary: Emily's thoughts and feelings as she makes that one decision that will change all the liar's lives forever. The ground breaking, heart shattering decision that makes her go in search of the nearest bridge. *Spoilers from Deadly*


**A/N: This is set in the books, when Emily is contemplating suicide. Emily is my favorite character; she's so sweet and I just love her, she's like my baby, I wanna protect her! :P It was just supposed to be an insight into her mind. I'm not sure about the ending.**

**I hope you liked it! **

Emily Fields made sure that her bed was made as she left her house for what could have possibly been the final time. A task that should have taken two minutes was stretched into ten, and she meticulously smoothed every crinkle in the sheets, fixed every bump in the fabric, and took extra time to make sure that her purple pillows were straight.

_Making a bed has never had this significance before,_ Emily thought, a shaky breath escaping from her lips. Truthfully, making the bed had never been something Emily had paid much attention to before - when she even bothered to do so. It wasn't a personal rule that she inflicted upon herself. It was something that her mother had always insisted upon, even when Emily was a very little girl, and yet Emily seldom bothered to even pull the sheets up to hide the pajamas that lingered there every morning.

But this is what her mother would find, when she came to check on Emily, hours later, long after she was gone. In Emily's mind, it was the one final thing she could do to make her mother proud. After all, she had failed to make either parent proud in any other part of her life.

For the best part of two years, she had tried to convince her parents that she was herself as a lesbian, and that didn't change who she was. When they had finally begun to accept her, to hug her as tightly as they did when she was nine, she had ruined it all once again by getting herself pregnant. That was when another icy freeze began. And the cherry on top of the cake, the straw that broke the camels back? She gave her own mother a heart attack. If making the bed was the final thing she could do to make her mother proud of her after Emily was...gone, then it was worth doing properly.

Emily's last thought as she stealthily sneaked out of the house was, "A made bed. What a legacy to leave behind."

* * *

><p>The journey to the bridge was mentally exhausting for Emily. Before she left, she had thought that nothing would be more tiring than making that final, set in stone decision. Yet she didn't know how wrong she could be, and although her legs felt fine, and her heart barely felt like it was beating, the butterflies swarmed in her stomach, and sweat beaded on her forehead. Her whole body felt heavy, like invisible lead weights were tied to her every limb.<p>

It had been an informed decision, she had thought, as she left the house. Posts on the internet described the moment that they had decided to do the same thing, and yet Emily didn't feel as though a "calming sense of finality was surging through her veins" or that her "whole body felt light with the anticipation of a release from life".

The heavy, relentless rain made the way down to the bridge slippery. There were a few times were Emily froze in fear, her wet hair plastered to her face, making her feel suffocated as it clung to her neck, as she lost her grip of the metal that stood between her and a thirty foot drop. It dawned on her, as she looked down, absolutely petrified of losing her footing and dropping into the black abyss of water that lay beneath her, the wind forming merciless black holes that swallowed you the moment you _splashed _into the water.

It was in that moment, where she saw the water below her, that she began to cry for the first time since she had made the decision to end her own life.

It wasn't because she thought of all the things that she would never experience again. No, she wasn't crying because she would never get to wear her favorite scarf again, or because she would never be able to feel the warm embrace of her mother hugging her again, it wasn't that she would never be able to listen to her favorite song again.

Okay, maybe she was crying a little bit because of all of those things.

Mostly, though, her tears were because of everything she had lost.

The list that she mentally went through while standing on that bridge was heartbreaking.

She had lost her first love. Emily knew, even after all of those things had happened to her, even after Ali had tried to kill her countless times, that something in her still loved that girl. Of course, it was really Courtney who had first sparked that little fire, the one that burned all through eighth grade, and Emily knew that. But even at that fire, when the girl she saw looked truly deranged, absolutely _psychotic, _there wasn't an off switch to her feelings.

She lost her second love, and her third, come to think of it. Worst of all, deep inside, Emily felt dead. It was like the possibility of loving someone and not having them ripped away was so foreign to her, that she had lost the will to love somewhere along the way.

She had lost her parents. Of course, everyday, Emily prayed and thanked god that her parents were still alive, as she knew that many people had lost even that most basic right - to live. However, when she saw the coldness in her father's eyes when he accidentally caught her eye at the dinner table, it broke her heart.

She had lost her sister. Emily knew that losing her sister was her fault entirely, but she still felt like breaking down into sobs and screams when she thought of the future. When she was thirteen, and she thought of the future, it was of Christmases to come. Her kids and her sisters kids, and all her siblings children played together next to the Christmas tree as her parents smiled, mugs of hot chocolate in hand, watching all of them play. Now? Now she saw a coffin in the ground with her name on it.

Perhaps, most importantly, along the way, Emily had lost herself. Where had she gone? Emily sunk to a sitting position on the narrow ledge, not knowing whether to throw herself off of the bridge or beg everyone she loved to lock themselves away until they all were safe. Emily wondered when and what safe was anymore.

And so she did what she had always been told to do, whenever she was in trouble, whenever she just needed to cry to someone, when she needed a friend.

She called Spencer.

Emily knew, that even in the bleakest of moments, in the darkest of places, those girls would be there, night or day.

Drama ensued.

Ambulances arrived, and so did the girls. Emily, eventually, was talked down. A hand helped her up from the bridge, pulled her from the dangers of the waters. The hand that pulled her up may not have been so compliant to help if they knew what danger the world brought to her, but Emily was grateful all the same.

Her friends embraced her.

And while her feelings still remained the same - the heavy lead weights weren't lifted, the butterflied still buzzed maniacally, and her head span like a spinning top, Emily promised not to do it again. She promised to go home, and she did.

She climbed into bed, and everything would remain the same as it was meant to be - not the happy ending she had wanted, but better than another body to bury, she supposed.

Her mother would never find the bed that she so tenderly made.

She would have to find a different legacy to leave behind, after all.


End file.
